In response to the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal expanded federal responsibility for the social welfare of ordinary citizens, sweeping away much of the laissez-faire individualism of earlier eras (see Chapter 23). Legislators from both parties embraced liberal ideas about the role of government and undertook such measures as the GI Bill, subsidies for suburban home ownership, and investment in infrastructure and education. Poverty, however, affected nearly one-third of Americans in the 1960s, and racial discrimination denied millions of nonwhites full citizenship. Lack of opportunity became a driving force in the civil rights movement and in the Great Society under President Lyndon Johnson.

Inspired by African American civil rights, other social movements sought equality based on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and other identities. If “New Deal liberalism” had focused on social welfare, this “rights liberalism” focused on protecting people from discrimination and ensuring equal citizenship. These struggles resulted in new laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and transformative Supreme Court decisions. Conservative opponents, however, mobilized in the 1960s against what they saw as the excesses of liberal activism. The resulting conflict began to reshape politics in the 1970s and laid the groundwork for a new conservative resurgence. These developments are discussed in Chapters 27 and 28.